The cool car has been acquired. We have our work cut out for us...
The cool car has been acquired. We have our work cut out for us...
Your rate of progress thus far is phenomenal.
In for more!
All of the components parked next to each other for the first time!
Hopefully start cutting into the solstice soon and turning that into a skeleton first. Cant do too much beyond that until concrete is poured in the shop. After that its game on.
As a Triumph guy, sorry to see that you are using an MK3 and not a much more common 1500 Spitfire, those MK3's are rare and have one of the best stock engines of the series. Other than that, carry on, looking forward to watching this happen.
the hardest part of getting a car this old is trying to get a title for it since i didnt get one. what a pain this is going to be...
Indy - Guy said:In reply to surfshibby07 :
Have you stumbled onto this build yet for inspiration?
Eeew.
Vermont will make it easy for you. Register and get a tag from them (will cost you the NADA value of the car in sales tax), sit on it for a while and then go to your state with the Vermont registration and tag and tell your state that you want to get it registered. They will issue you a title and you can do the registration later.
I am assuming you want the Spitfire title right? Not sure this would work for a newer car like the Solstice, but definitely for the Spitfire.
Indy - Guy said:In reply to surfshibby07 :
Have you stumbled onto this build yet for inspiration?
Well.... that answers the question if those corvette wheels look good on everything. Apparently, they do not.
dherr (Forum Supporter) said:Vermont will make it easy for you. Register and get a tag from them (will cost you the NADA value of the car in sales tax), sit on it for a while and then go to your state with the Vermont registration and tag and tell your state that you want to get it registered. They will issue you a title and you can do the registration later.
I am assuming you want the Spitfire title right? Not sure this would work for a newer car like the Solstice, but definitely for the Spitfire.
Yes i would like the spitfire title. mainly becasuse it "should" look like a spitfire or at least resemble one when im done. i have the solstice title but its a salvage/destruction title. i dont want to deal with that.
Indy - Guy said:In reply to surfshibby07 :
Have you stumbled onto this build yet for inspiration?
thats pretty cool. i would like to do something similar in terms of flares. but i do have some different ideas for wheels if i can make it work. the width of the corvette stuff he used is about the same as what the solstice is.
Here to learn from the Jedi Master!
How boogered up is the cobalt transmission from the wreck. I've been semi seriously looking for one to snag the LSD out of for my Saab.
In reply to RacetruckRon :
The transmission i believe is fine. i did try to move the car but one of the cv axles was destroyed and it wouldnt move as a result. i was told that the trans was out of an ion redline and had 30k miles on it. i cant confirm that, just what i was told. i did post the entire longblock, including the blower, and trans for 500 today. i am pivoting on the supercharger setup and going turbo...
So as my comment above states. ditching the supercharger set up and moving towards a turbo set up. Just much easier to package with less fabrication involved. the fuel system would have required too much work as well as making a custom elbow to get the throttle body facing the right direction. plus i was not a fan of having to run a belt with 1 less rib because the pulleys would not all match in size.
that being said i have purchased a brand new in the box turbo kit from an older gentleman in Louisiana. He lives near baton rouge. its an RPM turbo kit. if anyone lives near that area i would greatly appreciate anyones help who is willing to go pick it up and ship it to me. He is not willing to ship because i believe he is just too elderly and probably doesnt have the time or want to go through the trouble.
Some progress has been made! After months of this super nice 82 year old gentleman holding this turbo kit for me, I finally have it in my possession! He bought this kit for his 2009 solstice about 4 years ago and never used it. At some point he realized he would never do it so he decided to sell it to me...for $1400! Now I know this is a massive budget hit but this is a bolt on ready to go complete turbo kit, that's brand new! 60lb injectors included, map sensor, intercooler etc.
So today the car was moved into the garage and disassembly has begun! It is all being documented as well via YouTube.
And as far as the body grafting of the spitfire goes, I finally have a plan that I think will be pretty slick....
So this install has been a learning curve. The downfall of getting something second hand is having no paperwork other than the original invoice.
I reached out to Rpm to get guidelines etc and although they help a little, the biggest help was the stock ecotec piping diagram.
At the end of this day this turbo kit is comprised of about 75% of the ecotec turbo components from a stock sky redline or solstice turbo. Even though this is an LE5 2.4 and not the LNF 2.0, the ecotecs share a fascinating large amount of components. Really this kit just offers custom mandrel bent piping over what you could pull off a stock car. Even the manifold is a stock oem part.
The turbo is also water cooled, first time I've ever had to deal with that. So when I was going through the boxes of parts I had about 4 hard lines that I had no idea where they went. Picture below for reference. This js just in case anyone ever decides to go down the 2.4 turbo route lol.
Looks like an awesome build!
Following along, can't wait to see it rip!
Here is the progress after working on it on and off for a week. Over the hump now. Some of this picture is purely mock up to get the lines routed and figure which ones go where.
The hardest part is done which is drilling the block for the turbo drain.
The new thermostat housing and coolant tube are in. New injectors, map sensor, intercooler etc. All installed. Once it's buttoned up it will be time to change the oil to hopefully get any shavings that fell into the pan, then start tuning via hp tuners. This is an e67 ecu, much like what my trailblazer has. So it has a good processor, its e85 capable, and can even control boost from a factory boost solonoid.
It lives! Surprisingly enough this start up on the stock tune! Im mainly surprised because of the injectors. the map makes sense. it can be a 2 or 3 bar and wont matter because in the tune its only scaled for a 1 bar anyway.
currently its just on the 5lb spring that came in the turbo but once its running well enough, a certain little boost controller knob will get turned up and then it will see around 10psi.
If all goes as planned and this thing actually runs good, we are right on schedule to begin the body swap! I have somewhat of a plan moving forward but its kind of a roll of the dice how it will look...
This is hot. i just got my own wrecked 2.4, and I love it.
Will be watching tonight!
well 2 hours later and i still dont have the cooling system bled. this has been my least favorite car to do this on so far...
I just started getting heat out of the vents so i know the air is slowly working itself out. Going to jack the drivers side up in addition to lifting the coolant reservoir about a foot above its bracket.
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